Island Shrimp Co. Rocketts Landing — Restaurant in Richmond

PART #1 : Lets start with the good stuff even though it is not deserved. The food was amazing from the appetizers all the way to the desserts. The presentation was very nice from the decor of the restaurant to the plating. Unfortunately, all of the above doesn't make up for the experience my family had tonight. Oh waiter seemed okay but he was very forgetful and didn't have much knowledge of the menu. We had to ask for utensils because the table was never set. The waiter forgot to bring them but a supervisor seen that we were without so she tried to help but we let her know we requested plastic instead. The first appetizer was cold so we had to send it back. All the food was staggered so we all received things at different times and even once was given another tables food. Once my wife's food arrived her chicken was burnt to a crisp and her fries were cold. She spoke to the same supervisor who stopped by with the silverware. She seemed to be making up excuses for the kitchen and said that the grease may need to be changed and that it may come back the same way if that's the case and that she will ask them to cook it less BUT it may be undercooked which was very concerned because I would hope a chef knew how much to cook a piece of chicken before serving it to anyone. We felt like she didn't want to bother the kitchen. She even offered my wife to choose another entrée instead. My wife really wanted that dish and they remade it but the thought of it being undercooked stayed on her mind to the point she couldn't enjoy her food. We spoke to the district manager to just briefly chat about the confusion but that made it worst. The district manager continuously talked over my wife as she was trying to explain what happened. Then she got upset when my wife stopped talking and said "I won't talk I'll just let you talk", in a sarcastic tone. She made up for it by saying she would take off my wifes meal and treat our table to desserts at the end of the night saying we could EACH pick one for the inconvenience. My wife ordered a drink and didn't like it so she sent it back and the waiter seemed fine about it up until the check came. He was a little upset because we wanted an itemized receipt. We told him our concerns and he got even more frustrated with us. He told me wife "You should have never ordered something you weren't going to drink", at that point I asked for the district manager to return because he was rude for no reason. Another huge mistake. The district manager said that she was never giving all 4 of us dessert she was giving my wife a small pineapple upside-down cake that was not on the menu. Her story changed completely. We all looked at eachother but stayed calm and apologized for any misunderstanding. The is no way we heard the same thing. We were so upset about the waiter that my wife and I weren't both trying to get a word in but she made it seem like we were yelling at her BUT the truth is there was live music playing and she could never hear or understand what we had been saying each time we spoke to her. I tried to explain that to her but that didn't matter her attitude escalated. "Ma'am I've taken enough off for you already!" She shouted at my wife and in front of our two children. She treated us like everything was our fault. She never once confronted her staff for the poor service they provided. She even brought the waiter over to us while she belittled us further. At one point my wife was asked by the district manager if she wanted an updated copy of the receipt. I guess my wife didn't answer as fast as she had like so she had the audacity to lean down over into my wifes face and say "I'm asking you a question..." We were surprised by her demeanor and requested to pay. Instead of going to get the updated receipt she made an even bigger sense saying that "You will pay! Then she accused me of video recording her and saying she won't allow it and that she was going to get authorities to come put us out. My camera was up from taking pictures of my food and she assumed I was going to record...

After seeing so many good things about this place on Facebook, all of the positive Google reviews, and seeing how delicious the menu sounded, we decided to make a reservation to check it out. We visited on a Sunday evening around 7:00pm and there was a fairly decent amount of people in the restaurant; however, there were a lot of empty booths and tables - I would estimate they were at around 50% full. When we arrived, the host greeted us very warmly, told us he was trying to find us a spot near the window, per my booking request, so we could enjoy the beautiful views the restaurant has to offer. The girl who escorted us to our table was very friendly, explained how the ordering system worked, and explained that there was a 20% service charge already applied to your bill. To order at the restaurant you scan a QR code which will take you to a website, where you add whatever food you want to your cart and check-out - if you go with multiple people, each of you add to the same cart on your own phone and you have the option to either pay out the tab completely at the end, or split it amongst your party. I found this to be pretty convenient actually because you don’t have to wait for the waiter/waitress to close out your tab at the end. Because of the way the ordering system is, they recommend placing orders for drinks and appetizers 5-10 minutes before ordering your entrees. I will break down the good and bad things we encountered during our stay here.

Good: I ordered Mochicko chicken, and the flavor was very good.

The crab dip we ordered was delicious, and we would highly recommend it.

My brother-in-law ordered the Mahi tacos, and he said they were very good, just a little on the spicy side. The macaroni salad was also delicious!

The Hula Ice Cream cake is the literal bomb. 10/10 would recommend, and the portion size is very generous for the price you pay for it.

Bad: We ordered our appetizers 10 minutes before we placed our entree orders, per their recommendation. My brother-in-law received his Mahi tacos in about 5 minutes, which was very prompt; however, it took the other entrees around 15-20 minutes to come out, which, even though I believe it to be weird that all of the entrees didn’t come out together, I thought was reasonable. The appetizers that we ordered 10 minutes before our entrees, took around 30-40 minutes to finally arrive at our table after we asked about them repeatedly, at which point we were already almost done with our entrees.

The portion sizes were very small compared to the price they charged for the entrees. My mochicko chicken was $19, and it looked like maybe $10 worth of food. For one little fried chicken breast, a scoop of fried rice, and some macaroni salad, the $19 price tag is just too high. The Korean chicken wings cost $12 and only come with 5 wings.. All they would have to do to improve this is just add one more to make it an order of 6.

Speaking of the fried rice.. Mine was super mushy, and resembled something you would expect to have if you were to microwave frozen fried rice at home. It was just not good at all. I asked if I could switch it out to their coconut jasmine rice, but never received any, despite being told that I could switch it out. The Korean chicken wings mentioned above were also super salty, and were lacking the crunch that you desire from wings. Lastly, the wonton chips that came with our crab dip were very greasy. It made us believe that the kitchen forgot to drain the grease off of them before putting them on our plate.

Lastly, the service we received that night was poor. I am all for waiting staff being paid well, and I believe that they should all receive 20% gratuity; however, I don’t believe you deserve 20% if you don’t come around to simply refill drinks. Wait staff here aren’t taking orders, they don’t deliver the food, so they should at least stay on top of refilling your drinks.

I am not sure if we will return here or not to give it a second chance, but we were disappointed after seeing all of the...

Everything about this experience was awful. First- I’m assuming it’s owned by the same people as The Boathouse/Rocketts Landing since our water glasses were logo’d from there. So let’s start there. We originally planned to eat there. We’re told “we’re booked solid for hours and hours, all evening really. But you can sit at the bar. It’s indoor and outdoor and full service.” So… we walk in to see an almost entirely empty indoor seating area, 3 million employees, and no bar seating available. The outdoor bar area was vacant and looked like it had just been rained on. We were confused given what was told to us, so we left. Walked the short distance to Island Shrimp Co. One woman was waiting in front of us, and she did get seated before us. After we were asked how many were in our party, we were told the server was going to clean off the table and would be right back to seat us. By the time she walked back three other parties of two or three people each head come in behind us. She bypassed us, and proceeded to seat each of those parties prior to coming back and asked us again how many were in our party—- like we had just arrived and she forgot she was already clearing a table for us!!. We got to our seat and sat for approximately 30 minutes before anyone walked over to bring us water. We also put in a drink and appetizer order. Once the appetizer was delivered, we wasted no time given the slowness of the service so far and placed our meal order. About 35 minutes went by from that point when we noticed a change in the servers. The new server came to our table and asked if we’d like to put in any additional orders for anything else. We pointed out that we have not even gotten our food yet. I watched her walk back to the kitchen and make some inquiries and look very confused. She came back to us explaining that our previous waitress forgot to put in our order and also couldn’t remember what we ordered (an attempt to cover up her mistake by just sliding the order in late). But—“would [we] still like to order food?”. NO!!! Like I’d trust the quality at this point. Nope. No thank you. They cleared the cost of the appetizer and the 20% service charge. Interesting little tidbit that they charge a 20% service charge to “ provide a professional wage to their employees, and no additional tipping is necessary”. It is my bet they had to institute this because no one was receiving tips due to awful service. Additionally, the new screwed-over-by-the-original-server sent the Lead Cook to address our complaint because other managers were busy. I wish I would’ve insisted that the original server come and explain...